The present invention is directed to a system and method for communicating data from a vehicle and, in particular, to a system which communicates vehicle data from an onboard vehicle diagnostic system. The invention may be used for vehicle diagnosis, vehicle performance monitoring and/or environmental regulatory compliance.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,636,790 B1 issued to Lightner et al. is directed to a METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR REMOTELY CHARACTERIZING A VEHICLE'S PERFORMANCE. Data representative of the vehicle's performance is generated within the vehicle and transferred through an OBD, OBD-2 or equivalent electrical connector to a data collector or a router including an electrically connected wireless transmitter. A data packet representing the data is transmitted with the wireless transmitter over an air link to a wireless communication system and then to a host computer. The air link is made up of a conventional wireless telephone or paging system.
U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2003/0130774 A1 issued to Tripathi et al. discloses a vehicle unit including a vehicle wireless communication transceiver for controlling the wireless communication transceiver. The control includes memory for storing vehicle data including exhaust emission parameters from a vehicle diagnostic system. A communication network is provided for two-way wireless communication with the vehicle unit. The communication network is made up of a plurality of geographically dispersed wireless communication transceivers. When the vehicle approaches one of the geographically dispersed wireless communication transceivers, that geographically dispersed wireless communication transceiver activates the vehicle wireless communication transceiver to communicate vehicle data in the memory to that geographically dispersed wireless communication transceiver. Thus, as vehicles pass a geographically dispersed wireless communication transceiver, the data is transferred. This is particularly useful for environmental regulatory compliance verification.